FINAL RE-EDIT! Hopefully…with gallery, all vids showing again….
Car Audio Security is the largest electronic and bricks and mortar combined dealer of ICE in the UK I reckon. They are also the home of JBL in car products distribution for the UK and they employ a small army of capable lads to do stuff. On their recent open weekend, you would go in, checkout your heart’s desire in the display area then move to the till where one bloke takes the order and sorts out the despatch bloke to go and fetch the item from stock, before handing over to the bloke who is just manning the till and nothing else.
It’s so slick that when my mate had decided on his headunit (he went for a Sony rather than the Kenwood in the same area as it went better with his dash layout he felt.) he also went for a bass box. A ready made from JL Audio, they were doing deals as it was show weekend and it was an unassailably keen price for a very sexy bass box. It was there with a chap and a big old upright barrow awaiting him as he paid at the till to take it to his car.
But these events each year, most assuredly to promote the business in general, have become the coolest show in the year for those in the know. If you are truly passionate about car audio, then these are the events to get to, as every maker who has a demo car worthy of the name makes sure it is at CAS for this one weekend each year. It means there is a better concentration of cool car audio metal at this show than just about any other. For being such a big dealer, CAS has clout and every maker sends their best rides.
Lovely demo metal
The weekend is festooned with a plethora of superb installs but as they are all so very close together, it can be a bit noisy! I think that for two years running the YouTube system was able to hear the background music so clearly in my clips that it has added adverts to these videos on my channel!
Of course the guys are also now distributing some other super cool items and brands these days from Directed Electronics alarm technology (wanna start your car while it’s parked and tick it over from anywhere worldwide by your mobile?) and Orion car audio and more, so watch this space. This does mean a real row of company installs of great loveliness. MY fave of which was the boss’s black Audi R8, which is equipped with that remote start alarm system.
Audi R8
There has long been a bass contest at CAS, with them running their own CASper competition format with tones but last year they had the Propper Droppers format chap, Marcos Barnes show up to run one day (and will be again later in the year) and then they would run their own. However, this year, I managed to hook the CAS guys up with Andrew Ackerley who is boss of EMMA UK. Thus, for the first time, the Car Audio Security Open Weekend saw a Sound Quality sound off as well as the bass day for EMMA run a slew of heavy duty SQ classes.
and just check out this daft vibrating number plate action!
But it was the lads like the new chap to the scene from down south and Mr. Dave Legg, erstwhile sound off legend coming out again to help educate people in the technical side of things and just to let some lucky types actually sit in their cars and hear a better system than any they had heard before that warmed the cockles of my heart. It was great fun to witness. I would badger another show goer into getting in and trying it and you could see them holding their hands up in the air in front of them, as they talked to the owner. It was a bit like when you wave a hand in front of you at an IMAX 3D screening&;
There were some astonishingly loud cars there, with a newbie from Highdown that is well into the rolling P.A. system bracket and Ed Elson’s Audi, stuffed with Ground Zero ordnance was just mentally loud and clear. Everybody is using bullet tweeters at this level and I fear for their hearing health. I’m definitely going to offer Ed and the Highdown golf up as possible additions to the professional Rock & Roll sound and light rental company just up the road from CAS, called Entec sound & Light. I’ll let you know if we get any bookings.
Saturday was pretty good but Sunday was a damp wet day that we knew was coming, which is why it was deeply cool of the Guv’Nor to simply stump up for another acreage of marquee to keep the sound off side dry. Good on him!
So if you see this one coming up next time around, seriously, drop stuff and go. You won’t get a better access to that many cars of that quality of sound installation at any other show.
some more shots…
tough job…
Fast Car sent Si Gray, top nobby snapper
FOUR JL Audio W7’s lucky GIT!
Steve SIlman brought his dad Paul and his brother James with him.
From Geordieland to Heathrow and back in a Smart – with phat Fusion bass
Pioneer Smart car with DJ Doin’ It
Genesis Amplifier P15 arty goodness!
And results time!
And finally, I have uploaded a few shots of the 2012 event into the CAS gallery I made for 2010 – it has just four shots, easy to identify as they have a doubled-up watermark (my error back then) and then it is pictures of this event. At time of writing, the image pop-opener is busted so I am not utterly certain this will work but it is a URL rather than image tag.
